Civil rights protests

• Segregation


  Policies and laws that meant black and white people had to use different facilities
• Jim Crow laws


  Laws that meant African Americans had to attend different schools and use separate areas in restaurants, libraries, cinemas, parks, laboratories, swimming pools and other facilities
• In the Northern states of America, there was usually an absence of such laws, yet Black people were not fully seen as equal to their white counterparts
• The wages for coloured workers were below half of what would be paid to a white worker for the same job, and unemployment levels were much higher for African Americans
• Voting barriers for black people

  • Difficult literacy test biased towards white people
  • Poll tax not applied to white people
  • Violence and threats used against black people who passed the above to prevent them from voting
• Brown vs Topeka case


  1. Linda Brown's parents applied for her to join an all-white elementary school

  2. Case rejected by local court

  3. Case taken to Supreme Court

  4. Supreme Court ruled school segregation unconstitutional
• The Brown vs Topeka verdict was a great victory for the NAACP and brought increased awareness of African American civil rights, leading to many more legal cases and campaigns
• White Citizens Councils


  Organised by white Southerners furious at the Brown vs Topeka verdict to maintain segregation laws
• Ku Klux Klan


  Violent white supremacist group that targeted civil rights protestors, using methods such as beating, shooting, and bombing
• Emmett Till incident


  1. Till accused of flirting with white woman in store

  2. Taken from relative's house, beaten, shot, and body thrown in river

  3. Emmett's mother left casket open to show damage

  4. Men found innocent by all-white jury but later confessed
• Rosa Parks incident


  Parks refused to give up her seat on segregated bus, leading to her arrest
• Women's Political Council in Montgomery

  Fought bus segregation and discrimination, called for boycott of buses after Rosa Parks' arrest
• Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA)


  Aimed to improve integration in Montgomery by ending segregation and discrimination, led by Martin Luther King
• Martin Luther King


  • Spoke on behalf of African American rights, emphasised need for peaceful protests and passive resistance, great speaker who contributed greatly to Civil Rights Movement
• Bus Boycott


  1. Taxis charged lower fares, white car owners gave African Americans lifts, MIA organised car-pooling system

  2. NAACP filed Browder vs Gayle case demanding desegregation of buses

  3. Supreme Court agreed buses should be desegregated
• Significance of Bus Boycott

  Helped get buses desegregated, got media attention, successful form of protest, raised profiles like Martin Luther King, emphasised importance of church
• The Bus Boycott led to a backlash of more violence from the Ku Klux Klan, including a wave of bombings
• 1948 Civil Rights Act


  Truman attempted to get act passed but faced opposition from Republicans and Dixiecrats
• 1956 Civil Rights Bill


  Eisenhower tried to get bill passed but faced resistance from Congress, especially Southern states
• 1957 Civil Rights Act


  Focused on increasing African American voters, set up US Commission on Civil Rights, had little immediate impact but showed Congress was willing to make changes
• Governor Fabus at Arkansas

  1. Ordered state troops to prevent African American students from integrating Little Rock High School

  2. Eisenhower sent federal troops to escort students and enforce desegregation
• Passive resistance


  • Nonviolent action influenced by Gandhi, used by Martin Luther King
• Sit-ins


  Peaceful protests by students at segregated lunch counters, faced abuse but remained nonviolent, helped spread idea of peaceful protest, led to desegregation of many facilities
• Freedom Riders


  CORE activists planned rides to ensure bus desegregation laws were being enforced, faced violence but continued protests, led to states beginning to desegregate buses
• The Anniston Fire Bombings showed the police were biased towards the KKK and that white supremacists still existed despite desegregation laws
• James Meredith case


  Meredith applied to and was rejected from University of Mississippi, Supreme Court ordered university to accept him but they refused, President Kennedy intervened to escort Meredith and assist his registration
• The Birmingham civil rights protests achieved significant publicity due to the lack of desegregated facilities and the active Ku Klux Klan presence in the city
• When African American James Meredith applied for a place in Mississippi University in May of 1961, he was rejected. He took his case to court. In June 1962, the Supreme Court ordered the university to accept him but they still refused.
• The Mississippi state legislature then passed a law that stated anyone who had a prior criminal offence could not be admitted into the school, and Meredith had been convicted of false voting registration.
• On Monday 1st of October, James Meredith successfully registered at the University of Mississippi.
• The first of the civil rights protests to achieve significant publicity was in Birmingham, Alabama, because there were no desegregated facilities there at all, but nearly half of the city's half a million inhabitants were African American.
• Birmingham had an active Ku Klux Klan and African Americans were frequently attacked; the city was nicknamed 'Bombingham' because of the frequency of bombs that were set off.
• Project C


  1. Sit-ins

  2. Boycotts

  3. Marches
• The police arrested young protestors, who were protesting non-violently, some being as young as 6 or 7 years old. By the end of the day, more than 1000 children had been arrested.
• On the 3rd of May, more children marched in protest.
• Chief Connor ordered dogs to be set on the protestors and then called the fire department to set hoses on them.
• The civil rights group got the publicity they wanted after the events of Birmingham. Television footage of young people protesting peacefully and being attacked was shown all throughout the United States and across the world. Events at Birmingham led to similar protests across the USA.
• The President wanted to avoid such humiliation that he faced from other countries and so he began focusing his attention on developing a new civil rights bill.
• Soon after the march on Birmingham, the march on Washington DC was organised as it was where the Federal Government was based. The protestors wanted to show their support for the new civil rights bill that Congress was debating upon.
• The President grew increasingly concerned about the potential for violence, but nothing except peacefulness occurred in Washington.